v1.2.01, v1.2.01_G Beta version for Z9X 8K/Z30 PRO/Z3000 PRO/UHD8000

Stuttering is how I described it, but you description is exactly what I witnessed last night. I don't think it's my network or server though since it's the first time it's appeared (ever) and stopping the concert and then resuming it completely fixed the issue and it didn't come back. I'll be watching it very closely though going forward and will try and troubleshoot.

Any idea when the internal beta will be released to the public?

 

Cool - that makes sense...

Sorry, this is a preliminary beta only addressing the freeze (and standby) issue because it was such a bugger to tie down so I've no idea when the next release will be - can't be far away though...

 

What weather service/provider is used? For some reason my town will not work (ZIP code of 14075) and I feel that is causing some issues.

Also I found the default setting in HT on this box is set to save metadata to Device instead of Custom (storage://) - the user I connect to my main Media share with only has read permissions - so I think this was causing the scanning issues as it was trying to save to the network share and failing and just locking things up.

 

@Markswift2003 :I just received my z9x 8k and here's a big question:
Can we ever hope to separate unwatched movies and TV series ( without using the filter system, which doesn't allow constant display of that)?it's one of the few things I find annoying in HT5 and that makes me use zdmc...it's a shame

 

Sending this thing back to AliExpress. Messed with it pretty much all day yesterday and my only guess is that the RAM or eMMC is bad on this unit. It is so unstable this couldn't have been intentionally released in this state. Box and unit didn't see damaged at all but the experience with it is just infuriating (especially compared to my 3 year old Z9X with only 2GB of RAM). I'll probably order another one but from a different seller.

 

Hello, I received my Z9X 8K last night and I love it already. However, I am surprised by the audio quality.
Compared to the z9x or my Nokia 8010 (amlogic 905x4-k) I find that the bass is crushed. With the others, the floorstanding speakers were enough to feel the bass properly, but with the 8k I have to add the subwoofer to get an equivalent sensation... yet my audio settings are on Raw on the Z9X 8K.

 

Can you explain?

 

I don't know but I doubt it.

 

I've tried to find a workaround since HT4 but no way!!

 

If you use RAW, the box will output the raw bitstream regardless of what the EDID tells it about the capabilities of the AVR/TV etc so I'd recommend Auto unless you know you won't play any formats unsupported by the AVR/TV.

A bitstream is a bitstream is a bitstream - the same set of 1's and 0's spit out of any player in the same order, be it the Z9X 8K, the Z9X or your Nokia (assuming you have them set up the same).

And yes, bit error rate, clock accuracy blah blah blah, but there is no way that the player can influence the sound in this case - the bitstream is decoded and output by the AVR, soundbar or whatever you use to play it and that's the point where the bitsteam becomes a "sound" and can be influenced as such.

 

I know that, but it's the feeling I have (and it seems to me that there have been others who have had this feeling) my old z9x was also set hard raw and I find that the bass was more pronounced....but I never said I had a problem...
Z9X 8K --->Denon AVR-X2700H DAB---> Panasonic TX- HZ980E....
So far no stuttering or other problems.
At the same time, I've only had it a day and I've only tried it for 5 hours.

 

It's a real shame to neglect this kind of thing.
It's these little things that can make all the difference...

 

I fully understand that, but unfortunately no box is ever going to be all things to all people.

 

If this is either Dolby Digital, TrueHD, DTS or DTS-HD (and variants) then I have to go as far as to say it's not possible for one box to sound different to another one - these formats range from using 16-bit words to 24-bit words and the data is the same regardless of which box they come out of.

In this respect, these boxes are simply Transports - in other words they do not process audio either in the digital or analogue domains - they simply convey it to the device that does.

PCM is slightly different and there is the possibility to affect audio quality with a PCM stream - in the simplest form, by adjusting gain (volume) - although I don't believe there to be any great difference there either.

 

And yet I was obliged to increase the volume of my subwoofer....but that's not serious.
On the other hand, I noticed last night that these boxes don't have a standby mode, so you either turn everything off or restart it... It makes my HDD 2 5 slam on shutdown... but only one of the 2 .. so that means it won't last much longer...
I've read that there are problems if we leave the box on for a long time....but that's only if it's on without any action for at least 24 hours...is that right?

 

Yes, there is a current issue (which is being worked on) whereby the box, when left on, but NOT TOUCHED for approx. 24 hours, switches into an unsupported Standby mode. Pressing the Power button brings the box out of Standby in seconds and the only detrimental symptom I'm aware of is that the front display reverts to Bright even if it was previously set to Dim.

Should be fixed in the next release.

 

@Markswift2003 - any eta Mark?

Any news on the white level issue?

 

The display brightness is one thing. It hoses up my ethernet connection and connected shares until the device is rebooted.

 

There is a lot more to it than front panel display brightness:

• Ethernet connection goes off-line and will not come back, not even if you disconnect and reconnect the Ethernet cable.
• If you switch Ethernet from DHCP to manual configuration, it reports 100Mbps connection, but in reality there is no connection at all.
• Music Player V8.0 will show 1 Album, 5,000 Artists, 0 Tracks and will crash/restart if you try to do much with it.
• The main launcher seems to be very slow to respond (I actually think it keeps crashing and while it restarts the Z9X 8K just doesn't respond)

There may be more, but those are the issues that are reproducible consistently.

Hopefully, they'll just disable the unwanted sleep mode and that will clean up all the issues that it triggers.

 

We'll I'm happy but sad also (spend more money..lol).. I've solved my Black screen issue.. it was so random.. watch one movie and its fine and then watch it again few weeks later.. and black screen re-sync, so it was easy to blame the box, but I knew something else was going on.
Was watching a TV series and black screen re-sync started again.. I use a HDMI switch for all my devices.. I always assumed it was fine because I don't get issues using other media connected. So anyway during one of my black screen moments, I cycled
the switch and the black screen stopped??. I was like.. what?.. so for the past week of experimenting with that and correcting the sync by power cycling.. Decided that I needed a new hdmi switch, picked up a half decent one this time, and after few days of testing
It would seem to fixed that issue for black screen anyway.